


Blank Earth

by MrSelfDestruct97



Series: The Placebo Effect [1]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Tragedy, Bittersweet Ending, Bleak, Casual Sex, Drug Abuse, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Gang Violence, Gen, Gritty, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, LGBTQ Themes, Major Character Injury, Multi, Other, Physical Disability, Poverty, Rape/Non-con Elements, Realism, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide, Urban, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 11:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20339464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSelfDestruct97/pseuds/MrSelfDestruct97
Summary: In the rainy and rusted suburbs of Beacon Hill, six troubled girls from different walks of life share two things in common; a run-down house they call home and a dream to escape the grasp of poverty in a cold world which has deemed them degenerates and outcasts.Influenced by the works of Irvine Welsh and Hubert Selby, Jr., 'Blank Earth' serves as a gritty and unflinching look into the life of Ryley Summers; an eccentric and rebellious young girl looking to escape her childhood trauma through a life of petty crime. At her side, her girlfriend, Alex Peterson, and roommates Jay, Dawn, Emily and Ami each attempt to escape the hostility of modern civilization. Hiding behind labels and facades from their own doubts and insecurities, all the while indulged by their own lust, ego and desires into a self-destructive downward spiral of sex, drugs, alcohol and nihilism. Like a cigarette, their youthful care-free lifestyle burns away, grotesquely manifesting into a bleak gut-wrenching nightmare.





	Blank Earth

“A cigarette only takes a certain amount of time to smoke, and though this takes time, it seems to take less and less with each one, and you can only smoke so many. There comes a time when you have to stop, when you just can't light the next one... at least not for a while.”  
\- Hubert Selby Jr.

* * *

RYLEY SUMMERS knew what she was doing was wrong. Her feet hit the pavement and the frail door swung open behind her with a loud crash. She had very little time to stop and process her actions; her surroundings not much more than a blur. A distant, booming, rage-filled voice followed as she hastily made her way towards the red truck that sat idly in the center of her vision. Ryley quickly slid across the hood of the truck, through the door on the other side and into the driver's seat with little hesitation; pausing just long enough to catch a brief glimpse of the loud madman running towards her. She immediately ignited the car's engine, the key's having been left in the ignition and screeched full-speed out of the gas station parking lot. The warm sensation of blood dripped down her face from the open gash on her nose and an innocuous brown paper bag sat huddled in the leather passenger seat next to her.

Ryley was aware of two things: one, the store clerk had seen her face, and two, the greasy old bastard pulled a gun. If she had been even a few seconds slower, the chances were high and likely that she would have been another body on the eight o’clock news. Thankfully, she had assessed the risk from the start and made it out in one piece. It was usually the small and inconspicuous places like gas stations, diners, and car garages that either had laundering and distribution ties to the local gangs or were the general targets for robberies and stick-ups by young criminal wannabes who had found their father's gun, in either case, the number of behind-the-counter shotguns had been on the rise, but she wasn't concerned about that anymore. The gas station vanished in the horizon of her rearview mirror and Ryley finally let out the exhale she had been holding in, loosening her shoulders and easing the death grip she had on the steering wheel. She could hardly keep the speed limit as the truck glided down 15th Avenue. She glanced back over at the bag next to her, the contents of which she estimated that - if she actually had bothered to pay - would’ve come to around seventy-six dollars, but that was more than she could afford at the moment.

Anxiously checking the rear-view mirrors for any pigs that may have been following her, Ryley pulled up to the intersection and stopped at the light. None. She leaned back in her seat and shrugged off the baggy black zip-up hoodie that she had been concealing herself in and as the light turned green, she moved. These were the daily slums of her overcast world, small decaying houses with crooked chain-link fences, cracked sidewalks, street poles littered with pull-away ads and flyers. Everywhere she looked, there were sunken faces, grins with missing teeth, the homeless, the junkies, the runaways, shirtless children with bare feet ran on the sidewalk with the broken glass and cigarette butts. She didn’t like being out alone after dark, not on these streets anyway. Thankfully, she’d be home before then, then she’d be able to cuddle with the girl she loved, at least one more time. That was a nice thought. When she was a child, 'home' meant fear, pain, anything but comfort, the place she loathed, a venomously toxic routine that killed her inside and out to keep. Now, with her parents long out of the picture, the connotations of the word ‘home’ now meant something else entirely: 'Home' was finally how she figured the other kids had always pictured it; a welcoming place of comfort and relaxation. 'Home' was friends, or rather, family, days and nights of excitement, love, a whirlwind of emotions and within the short span of five minutes, she had arrived.

Ryley pulled the truck into the driveway, bouncing as the wheel drove over the curb. Shit. Ryley cursed herself out when she realized that the garage door was closed and she didn’t have the keys to open them. She quickly hopped out of the truck and knocked on the garage door. Even from outside, the whole house reeked of cheap beer, sex and stale cigarettes. Ryley stood anxiously, tapping her hands on her jeans as she awaited a response from her roommate inside who had practically called the garage 'home'. A few seconds of nervous silence and mind-racing passed before the door began to open and Ryley quickly paced back down the driveway into her rusty red pick-up and drove inside.

“In a rush are we?” a rough voice spoke from behind her as Ryley grabbed the paper bag and turned off the ignition, climbing out of the truck and slamming the door behind her. Ryley looked up, in a sigh of relief at the face who stood in front of her. Jay didn’t seem like much of a girl at all. From the short and greasy hair to the baggy work jeans, work boots, almost obsessive exercise routine, sluggishly lax posture, and name, which Ryley later learned was a shortened abbreviation of 'Jane'. The outside world was barely a concern to Jay, as the garage served as a humble abode, a place of refuge, one stable concrete place in a world that always seemed to be on the move. Ryley knew that no matter how messy it seemed like the garage could get, Jay would always be able to easily locate and identify and of her multiple tools and gadgets. Jay had just become that familiar with it; they spoke to each other on a frequency Ryley could never understand.

Jay took a sip of pale ale as she crossed her arms, they were covered in some gunky, smelly black fluid, she held a rusty old wrench that she casually shoved in her jeans like one would with a pencil or a cell phone. Ryley had sensed that a torrential amount of trouble was coming her way for the contents of the bag and how it was that she collected enough money to pay for them, but thankfully her fears were eradicated when she noticed that Jay’s face was that of concern rather than anger. The truth spilled out of Ryley, almost without hesitation.

“I - uh, stole some things from the convenience store up in Mount Baker. Had to leave in a hurry. Please, I’m asking you -- don’t tell Alex about this. Our anniversary is tomorrow and she’ll have my head on a fuckin' stick if she knew that I stole shit for her.” Ryley explained, catching her breath as Jay handed her the frosty bottle and allowed her a sip of the beer.

“Well, shit. Did anyone see you? The cops or the clerks, I mean.” Jay asked out of concern, quickly and cautiously checking both ends of the driveway before closing the garage door shut. Ryley gulping down on the beer almost in desperation.

“Yeah, uh, I think so, the manager chased after me on foot. He had a gun, I think. We’re good though, I made sure nobody followed me.”

“...and the nose?” Jay asked, gesturing her hand over her nose.

“I, um, kind of bashed it on the door on my way out. I can fix it up myself.”

Jay exhaled in relief, the fear of a bloody brawl and a police manhunt had visibly plagued Jay’s face; that was after all Ryley’s usual response to conflict. Ryley had always been the type of person to bring the fists into a fight or flight scenario. This time had made for a remarkable exception. Jay nodded her head and wiped her oily hands on her already filthy jeans, and patted Ryley on the head, rubbing her hand through Ryley’s almost equally greasy blonde hair.

“Tell you what, you get inside and clean up. I’ll keep this a secret but you'll owe me one later. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta switch the plates and put a new layer of paint on this baby.”

“Deal.” Ryley smiled.

“Oh, and you might want to make sure you take off your shoes the minute you get in. I got bitched at for an hour today because I wore my steel-toes in the house.” Jay laughed, placing the beer on the roof of the pickup.

Ryley headed inside the rotting messy shithole that was her beloved home, she shared the house with five other roommates including Jay and it wasn't uncommon that she had occasional guests take up the couch, attic and bathroom floor. She lived there because the rent was dirt cheap and was split and divided between all of them, a 'take as needed, give what you can' type ordeal, where everyone helped each other out, but generally, the less you spent, the less you had to pay back, so she spent her time away from home. Ryley kicked off her ragged and worn-out converse, leaving them lying next to the garage door as she rushed barefoot from the tiled kitchen, up the wooden staircase and into the cold porcelain bathroom. She tapped a switch and the bathroom light slowly flickered on with a static hum. Ryley closed the door behind her and took this short time to recollect herself and splash water on her sweat-drenched face. She looked up in the dirty and cracked mirror as she smudged away the dried up blood that had formed a mustache on her upper lip. The water stung as it touched the wound on her nose, yet despite the pain, she did nothing but wince slightly. Such pain didn’t seem to bother her much anymore, she had gotten used to it. Ryley reached for a bandage from the drawer under the sink and with the mirror’s aid placed it over the gash, smoothing it out with her finger, if anything irritated her, it was how applying the bandage had made her crosseyed and dizzy, but she couldn’t seem to deny how ‘bad-ass’ she looked with such a bandage, and how much cooler she'd look when the wound healed over into a scar.

She gazed at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t done, not yet, she slipped off her denim vest and yanked off her t-shirt, softly placing them on the shelf next to her. Her pale body was now vulnerable but only to herself, she turned and looked back at her reflection, flexing her muscles and posing with a stern and aggressive face before slouching in disappointment, giving up her tough exterior as she weighed her breasts in each hand and began carefully studying herself in the mirror, in hopes that any of the dozens of scars, welts or burns on her body would have magically faded away. Ryley had intrinsically memorized the location and shape of each and everyone and could even recall the exact instance that they had come from. She ran her hands through her short and greasy blonde hair, reaching into the drawer once more and grabbing the hair clipper. She paused at the device in her hand and then plugged it into the wall. Ryley recalled the day that Alex had come home from the barber’s shop with a new haircut, half of one side shaved off. Ryley turned the trimmer on and placed it to her forehead, she lowered her head, staring at the floor as she watched thick chunks of what was her hair build up on the sink counter and bathroom floor. She intended to stop at half but kept going and by the time she had finished, all the hair on her head had been shaved to barely the length of a fingernail, she dumped her head under the running water, the sensation was entirely different than anything she was used to, Finally, she turned the tap off and stepped away from the sink, using a towel to dry off her head as she looked back into the mirror, idolizing the new person standing in the mirror before her.


End file.
